PalmerSport Ginetta Scholarship winner James Nicholas had another successful weekend in the Ginetta GT Academy championship at Silverstone coming away with two wins from two races.
James proved his speed and skill during a rigorous assessment process at the home of PalmerSport, Bedford Autodrome, and earned himself a fully funded drive in the 2024 GT Academy season. He delivered immediately at the opening weekend at Oulton Park in March, winning his first ever car race and finishing the second and third races.
At Silverstone, James did even better. He took a double pole in qualifying and then won both GT Academy races - a clean sweep across a damp qualifying, a dry first race and a soaking second race.
The first race saw James lead away from pole and he didn’t look back. He pulled a four second gap early on and held it until the flag, a crushing performance.
The torrential conditions of Sunday morning proved trickier. After a safety car start, James lost the lead to Gamble through Maggotts and Becketts. He held on to the back of him as they pulled away before another safety car brought the rest of the field back into play. At the next restart, James kept it clean and capitalised on a mistake ahead of him to retake the lead.
A final duel followed, but Gamble couldn’t get by and James won by 0.285s, securing the double.
James said: “I couldn’t dream of a better Silverstone weekend. I’m just amazed.
“[Racing in] the rain, especially, I was tentative and worried about starting. Harry Gamble made a mistake a few laps before the end, brought me back in the door, I think Mike Taylor’s pressuring probably helped. I made a mistake coming into the Loop, I thought I lost it and then just held on. [When I won] I didn’t know it was the last lap, you can’t see anything in the spray, you can’t see the pit boards, you can’t see anything.
“Yeah, I’m relieved, it was great.”
James leaves Silverstone second in the Rookie championship, just behind Gamble, as they head to the next round of the season at Donington Park on 25/26 May. If you are interested in an opportunity like James’s, PalmerSport is already planning to run another competition to win a full season in next year’s Ginetta GT Academy, once again in partnership with Ginetta Cars. Details will be announced in due course. For any enquiries, in the meantime, please email [email protected].